Shattered Halo: The New Guy Wins

I'm the legendary one that got away. The girl who left to study abroad. Then a friend told me my childhood sweetheart next door had found himself a double of me.

I didn't take it seriously. Until I flew home for the holidays.

At dinner, his mother asked me, half joking, the question she always asked. "When is my future daughterinlaw finally marrying into our family?" I glanced at the boy next door.

Silent as a stone. Then I smiled and tossed the question right back at him. "Your mom's asking you. That girl who couldn't stop kissing you outside the door just now.

When is she, the future daughterinlaw, marrying into your family?" Chapter 1 Three years studying in Italy.

Another holiday season rolled around, and I decided, last minute, to take time off and fly home. Getting there was a whole ordeal.

I pulled a string of allnighters to finish every last project file. I begged my roommate to help haul my suitcase to the airport.

Twentyplus hours in the air, two train transfers, and I finally stood at the bottom of my building. Home was an old walkup on the state university campus. No elevator.

However heavy the suitcase, all I could do was muscle it up one step at a time.

Except when I reached the second floor, before I even turned the corner, a strange sound drifted down the stairwell. A familiar kind of sound. Someone was kissing.

I'd picked the wrong time to come home. Worse, I knew every single person who lived in this building, top to bottom.

To spare us all an awkward runin, I stopped where I was and decided to wait out the lovebirds. Head down, I scrolled through a dozen videos on mute.

The two upstairs showed no sign of wrapping up. If anything, soft, broken little whimpers joined in. Their love had reached the stage of zero regard for innocent bystanders.

Take it home, people! I grumbled to myself and waited a few more minutes.

Right around the time I figured they were about to go at it in the stairwell, the kissing sounds finally faded. Then a familiar male voice. "Addie flies home any day now.

Don't go out for a while. Just stay put in the apartment." "She's sharp. If she sees you, she'll be furious." And a memory clicked into place.

My first year in Italy, I was drowning in a hundred little errands. When I finally carved out time to call my friend Juno back home, she had news.

Juno told me Blake had found himself a double of me at his school. I was stunned. Blake had always hated me.

When he heard I was applying to colleges out of state, he told our mutual friends he hoped I'd never come back to be an eyesore.

Juno slapped her thigh, deep in gossip mode. "Who even knows what his deal is. My guess? He never dreamed your 'out of' meant out of the country.

Not just out of state." The way she told it, not long after I left, there was a high school reunion dinner. Halfway through, the talk drifted to me studying abroad.

Blake froze on the spot, like he couldn't believe a word of it. Juno was dying of curiosity. "You never told him?

About Italy?" I didn't have the energy for it. "We were barely speaking by then.

Like I was going to run over and handdeliver the news." Chapter 2 "No wonder," Juno said, then barreled right on. "But here comes the good part!" She kept going.

Not long ago, the group went out again, drinks and a karaoke night, and Blake showed up with a girl. Her profile, her eyes, looked shockingly like mine.

Except she seemed painfully shy. Skittish, even. I listened in silence. The whole thing sounded absurd.

But what if the guy had simply fallen for someone who happened to look like me? I didn't dare pass judgment. But now… I started up the stairs.

A girl came around the corner from the floor above, heading down. We brushed past each other. She had a face mask on, so she never saw my face. I saw every inch of hers.

Red, kissswollen lips. Dazed eyes. A crushed look. And a neck scattered with hickeys. My stomach turned. Not a rumor, then.

When I opened our front door, Blake's mom and dad were both in my living room. They'd heard I was landing tonight and decided the two families should eat together.

That part I knew about. Mom had asked me beforehand if I wanted her to turn them down. I said forget it.

Blake and I might be on terrible terms, but the grownups didn't need to lose a friendship over us. Mrs.

Sutton lit up the second she saw me. "Our pretty girl is finally home." I smiled and let her lead me in by the hand, saying hi to the adults in the room.

No Blake, though. "That boy. Still at home. I'll go get him right now." Dad took my suitcase. Mom patted my shoulder and said to Mr. Sutton, "Isn't Blake busy with his startup?

No rush. The catering hasn't come from the restaurant down the street anyway. We won't be eating for a while." So Mr. Sutton let it go.

He settled onto the couch beside me and started asking about my life abroad. Son aside, the Suttons were genuinely good people. Warm, decent elders. I didn't brush them off.

Every question got a real answer. Until the doorbell rang. Mom went to answer it. "That'll be the food. Let me look… Blake?

Why are you the one carrying it up?" "I went out to grab drinks.

Ran into the delivery guy downstairs on my way back." I looked up toward the door and met a gaze already aimed at me. We held it for a beat. Then Blake's mouth curled. "Well, well.

Look who finally decided to come back." The food arrived, the table filled, and Mom and Mrs. Sutton got busy laying everything out, loud and happy. When we sat down, Mrs.

Sutton herded Blake into the seat directly across from mine. His eyes never left me. I could feel them the entire meal. It made my skin itch.

After a long standoff, he spoke first. "How've the last few years been?" I didn't want to answer at all.

But with the elders sitting right there, I dragged my eyes up just enough and squeezed out two words. "Just fine." Seeing us actually talk, Mrs. Sutton beamed.

She rushed to share with her son the stories I'd just told them about my life abroad.

The one she picked: how my rental agent ghosted me my first week in Italy, and I nearly ended up sleeping on a curb. Across the table, Blake's eyes were still on me. Chapter 3 Mrs.

Sutton had always hoped we'd patch things up.

She never stopped playing gobetween. "See, if you'd stayed home for college, none of that would've happened," Blake said, a smile tugging at his mouth. "Then again, a little suffering out there is good for you.

Enough of it, and you finally learn how good home is." "Perfect timing, actually. A buddy of mine owns a place near the university in Bologna. I'll grab the keys from him this week.

You can live there from now on." Same old Blake. Bossy since we were kids. Always deciding things for me. That attitude dragged up some memories I'd rather have left buried.

A frown surfaced, too faint to catch. I thanked him for the thought, then shut it down. "No need. I like where I live." He didn't argue.

He just shrugged at the adults, smiling with a touch of helplessness, as if to say, see, she's throwing one of her little fits again. I couldn't be bothered.

I looked down and picked up a piece of chicken. A few rounds of drinks in, the awkward air we'd created finally warmed back up. I drank a little to keep the adults company.

But I was a lightweight, and college parties built around alcohol had never been my scene, so I stuck to small sips. Tipsy grownups will talk about anything. Dad and Mr.

Sutton debated world affairs. Mom and Mrs. Sutton traded neighborhood gossip. Blake and I tossed in a line here and there. For a while, it almost passed for cozy. Until Mrs.

Sutton crossed from tipsy into gone, turned her head to look at me, and steered the whole table my way, half joking. "Me? These days I'm satisfied with everything.

There's just one thing I still don't know. When is my future daughterinlaw finally marrying into our family?" The chatter cut off clean. My glass stopped midlift.

My eyes went, on their own, to Blake across the table. He said nothing. Just looked at me. He didn't even try to change the subject.

The girl on the stairs flashed through my head again. The wrecked eyes. The crushed look. I took a slow breath and pushed the nausea back down. Anger climbed up in its place.

Then I smiled. I tipped my chin at him. "Hey." And I tossed the question straight over. "Your mom's asking you. That girl who couldn't stop kissing you outside the door just now.

When is she, the future daughterinlaw, marrying into your family?" Mrs. Sutton's smile froze on her face. I did like Blake once.

For as far back as my memory goes, we were acrossthehall neighbors. Our families were close to begin with. And in the whole building, he was the only kid my age.

The older kids didn't want us tagging along, so for years we were each other's only playmate. We built sand castles together downstairs. We held hands at the amusement park.

To this day, our family album still has the photobooth strips we took together.

By some coincidence, we ended up in the same schools, same classes, from elementary all the way through high school.

When the first crushes started blooming, the girls in class loved to tease us. They said we were straight out of a storybook. Childhood sweethearts.

Chapter 4 I was young then, and easy to fluster. Lines like that turned my face red to the ears. During class I couldn't stop sneaking looks at Blake, heart going way too fast.

And Blake never denied a word of it. We did every almostsomething two kids could do. I believed he liked me.

Until the day I went over to do homework and ran into a houseful of his visiting relatives. They saw me come out of Blake's room and burst out laughing. "Look at our Blake.

Already knows to keep his pretty little wife tucked away at home." Blake said nothing. He walked me out, face perfectly calm.

Then the door shut behind us, and he turned, and his eyes were full of disgust. Thick, unmistakable disgust. He laid into me. He said I had no life of my own.

Said all I knew was clinging to him, all day, every day. Told me to stay away from him from now on. All I did was annoy him. That was all I'd ever done. I stood there stunned.

When his words finally sank in, the shame and fury hit so hard I wanted to drop through the floor and never come back up. We didn't part on speaking terms that day.

I started walking to school alone. After class I folded in with other friends. Life, it turned out, ran just fine minus one Blake Sutton.

At the occasional family dinner, we'd trade a few lines for the sake of keeping up appearances. But over time, even Mom and Dad noticed something was off. I didn't hide it.

I poured out every last drop. At first they couldn't believe it. A boy they'd watched grow up, saying things like that to their daughter. But they'd always trusted me.

Thank God for that. They didn't want me drowning in a dead friendship. They asked if I wanted a project, something to pull my attention somewhere else.

I thought about it and said, maybe I'll start on a studyabroad application. My already heavy schoolwork got heavier. My schedule packed itself solid.

There wasn't a spare minute left for moping. By junior year, our sameclass streak finally broke. His classes sat on the third floor, mine on the fourth. We lost touch. For good.

The next time I heard Blake's name, it wasn't long after. Word was he'd won over the prettiest girl in our grade.

And that was when I finally understood why he'd been in such a hurry to cut me loose. My friend watched me carefully. "Addie, don't be sad." I was quiet for a moment.

Then I just smiled. "Good for him." The day after I got home, I went out with a few friends. We were resting our feet in a coffee shop when I told them about my night.

After I said that one line to Blake, the laughter died. The table went scary quiet. I watched his face travel from smile, to shock, to panic, and then darken all at once.

Years of knots in my chest finally loosened. A little. Mrs. Sutton must have sobered up fast.

She sat silent for a moment, then asked, "So Blake is seeing someone…" I mirrored the shrug he'd given the adults earlier, aimed right at him. "Blake, honestly.

Dating someone and not even telling your family first? Look how worried you've made your poor parents